Insulating rod



June 11, H. w. H. WARREN Er'AL 1,717,287

INSULATING ROD Filed June 21, 1927 Inventors Henry \M H. Warren,Reginald Newbound, by ,M 1%;

- Their Attr'ney.

, 10 the rod.

Patented June II, 1929.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

HENRY w. H. WARREN, E covEN'r Y, AND REGINALD NEwRoUNn, or RUGBY, ENGLAND, AssIGNoRs TO GENERAL ELEc'r Io- COMPANY, A CORPORATION OF NEWYORK.

INSULATING ROD.

Application filed June 21, 1927, Serial No. 200,457, and in GreatBritain August 5, 1926.

Our invention relates to insulating rods and particularly to insulatingrods which are used to support or operate electrical apparatus. Y

Insulating rods have been made in the past with reinforcing layers offabric moulded therein and extending throughout the length of the rod,the reinforcement being provided for the additional strength which itgave to While such a rod is thereby strengthened at the points at whichconnec. tions are made thereto, for example at the ends of the rod, itis found that its insulating properties are impaired by thereinforcement and there is a tendency for the rods to splitlongitudinally between two adjacent layers when the rod is subjected tolarge potential differences. An object of our invention therefore is toprovide an insulatingrod for use such as described which shall avoid theaforesaid objections and have both the,

mechanical and the electrical strength desired. Our invention will bebetter understood from the following description taken in connectionwith the accompanying drawing, and its scope will be pointed outin theappended claims.

Referring to the drawing, Fig. 1 is a longitudinal cross section of oneembodiment of our invention and Fig. 2 is a similar view of a modifiedform. I In the drawing-we have shown an insulating rod 1 which forexample may comprise a portion of an oil switch such as the switchoperating rod. For illustrative purposes we .have shown the rod l inFig. l as the operating rod of an oil switch, the rod being pro-- videdwith a socket member 2 at one end secured to the rod by the rivets 3 andadapted to "carry a cross head or other contact supporting member andprovided at the other end with a clevis 4 by means of which it ispivoted at 5 to the member 6 which may be a lever of a switch operatingmechanism. The rod 1 is constructed of an insulating synthetic mouldedcompound, the central or body portion being uniform in composition whilethe end portions have embedded therein a reinforcement in the form ofparallel insulating layers 7 as for example of fabric. The layers 7 thusserve to reinforce mechanically the end portions of the rod-Where suchreinforcement is desirable without lowering the insulation value of theintermediate portion of the rod or rendering it liable to longitudinalsplit-' ting. lVe prefer to make the layers of varying lengths therebyto more securely embed them in the insulating compound.

In the modified form illustrated by Fig. 2 the rod 8 is adapted to havea connection made thereto at an intermediate point as well as the ends.It is here shown as 'a cross head of an oil switch having contacts 9 and10 mounted on the ends thereof and supported in the middle by theoperating rod 11, the

contacts being electrically connected togther 1 by the conducting strap12. In addition to the reinforcing layers 7 at the ends of the rod '8that part of the intermediate portion which is secured to the rod 11also is provided with reinforcing layers 13 which are simivariouslengths.

What we claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent of theUnited States, is,- 1. In an electric switch, a rod of insulatingmaterial having portions adapted to receive mechanical connection, saidportions of the lar to the lavers 7. They also preferably have rod beingprovided with a plurality of spaced layers of reinforcing fabric, theextent of said layers being limited substantially to said portions.

2. In an electric switch an insulating rod adapted to, have mechanicalconnections made to the ends thereof, said rod being constructed ofsynthetic insulating material having layers of reinforcing fabricarranged in and limited HENRY w. R. WARREN. REGINALD NEW ouNn.

